As soon as last Thursday's disorderly election debate at the Extension 9 Hall in Joza Township ended due to the noisy and disruptive crowd, finger pointing between political parties and the organisers, Grocott's Mail, began.
As soon as last Thursday's disorderly election debate at the Extension 9 Hall in Joza Township ended due to the noisy and disruptive crowd, finger pointing between political parties and the organisers, Grocott's Mail, began.
Officials from the five political parties present accused Grocott's editor Steven Lang of favouring one party over another because of unequal time allocation during the election debate. Inter party accusations also shot back and forth, mostly aimed at the ANC, and besides the sizeable presence of Azapo supporters, the ANC had the most supporters present at the debate.
ANC councillor Julia Wells took pot shots at opposition parties, in retaliation to criticism of the ANC's service delivery and unfulfilled goals by saying: "The DA, Cope, Azapo and Mind can promise everything but they never [get the opportunity to]test it [or see to it that their promises to the people are realised]."
She then said that despite opposition, the ruling party still has great support across the country. Cope deputy chairperson Nozipho Plaatjie felt disappointed by ANC members and their behaviour, and claimed that "they don't want people to hear the truth."
Azapo chairperson in Makana, Phakamisa Zatu, said although he was shocked by the behaviour of the ruling party's members, "I was not surprised to see ANC supporters disrupting the Azapo speaker [Mongezi Soxujwa]." His explanation was: "I was not surprised because the ANC can't practise democracy.”
He then called ANC members "the champions of disruption" because of their growing infamy for disrupting previous community meetings. Zatu speculated that many people choose to vote for the ANC because they prefer it from the previous white government, and not because it has good policies now.
Democratic Alliance secretary Xolani Madyo said all the parties had disrupted the debate because they would prefer it that way – that a debate does not take place. "Their reactions show very clearly that they had no respect [for the electorate]," said Madyo.
